


(wake up) your sleeping heart

by Nearly



Series: hurt/comfort bingo [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Curses, Gen, Hurt Merlin (Merlin), Hurt/Comfort, Merlin is So Done (Merlin), Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24830644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nearly/pseuds/Nearly
Summary: Merlin wakes up. He opens his eyes to the ceiling of his room in Gaius’ tower, feels the scratchy blankets beneath him, and—wait. He’s done this before.(aka Merlin gets stuck in a time loop, and he's Tired)
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: hurt/comfort bingo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817455
Comments: 3
Kudos: 163





	(wake up) your sleeping heart

**Author's Note:**

> this was a prompt from @pan_buck for my h/c bingo on tumblr!! I had fun with it, got a little carried away, as usual :)
> 
> title is from Wake Up by The Vamps

Merlin is getting really tired of evil sorceresses. There’s so many of them! Why are there so many? As if Morgana wasn’t bad enough, now they’ve got to deal with another?  _ Really?  _

Sure, magic is cool and all, but not when it’s being used against him. Magic is good for making his bed, or scrubbing the floor, or pranking Arthur—magic is  _ not  _ good for shooting him or Arthur with  _ fireballs.  _ He’s over it. He’s done with magic. 

_ You hear that, you ridiculously vague dragon? Done. With. It.  _ Merlin thinks, in the general direction of Kilgharrah, as if the dragon would actually hear him. Who knows? Maybe that’s one of his abilities. It’s not like he would inform Merlin of that, if it was. That dragon is infuriating, at the best of times. 

“Merlin! Duck!” Arthur bellows, bringing Merlin back to the present just in time to dodge another spell heading his way. Damn, how fast can this woman pull these spells out? Even he can’t do magic this fast. They’ve barely had an opening to fight back, with the speed at which she’s been throwing things at them. 

The sorceress whips around to face Arthur again the second Merlin hits the ground. She brings some sort of shielding spell up to block his sword as it swings down towards her. The sword catches on the warding and bounces off, the force of the collision throwing it from Arthur’s hand and into the grass, just out of reach. 

Time seems to slow as Merlin watches the sword fall, watches the witch bring her hands up to cast again, watches the magic forming between her palms turn dark and ugly. That’s not just a spell, Merlin realizes as it builds. That’s the beginnings of a  _ curse.  _

And she’s about to hit Arthur. 

Merlin is back on his feet and moving before he even consciously recognizes what he’s doing. He doesn’t know what this will do to him, but he doesn’t really care. All that matters is that he has the means to break this curse, whatever happens, and Arthur doesn’t. He sees the moment Arthur registers what’s about to hit him, eyes going wide, and Merlin is in front of him barely a second later.

“Merlin!” Arthur cries in alarmed protest, but he’s too late. The crackling ball of magic strikes Merlin in the middle of the chest, sending him stumbling back into Arthur, and they both crash to the ground. Merlin feels like it should hurt. Magic like that should hurt, right? 

But it doesn’t hurt. He just fades, vision greying out before he can focus on Arthur speaking to him. He thinks,  _ worth it,  _ and then he’s gone. 

* * *

Merlin wakes up. He opens his eyes to the ceiling of his room in Gaius’ tower, feels the scratchy blankets beneath him, and surprisingly, he doesn’t feel like shit. Maybe he was wrong, and that blast wasn’t actually a curse? He can’t claim to be all-knowing when it comes to magic, so he can’t always be sure. He feels fine, at least right now, so maybe nothing happened? 

He hops out of bed and heads for the main room, looking for Gaius. He finds the man at the table, spooning oatmeal into a couple of bowls. He looks up when Merlin enters. 

“Ah, Merlin,” Gaius says mildly, “Just in time.” 

“Oatmeal  _ again, _ Gaius?” Merlin groans, slumping down onto the bench and grabbing for his bowl. Gaius gives him a confused glance. 

“Again?” 

Merlin doesn’t get a chance to respond, because less than a second later Arthur comes barreling through the door in a nearly identical fashion to the way he’d come bursting in yesterday.  _ Deja vu,  _ Merlin thinks, and shovels a spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth before Arthur can pull him to his feet like Merlin is  _ absolutely _ certain he’s going to. The idea of a curse is all but forgotten because he feels fine, really, and Arthur is hauling on his arm just like he did yesterday and rambling on about a sorceress, _ again.  _ Do these women ever take a day off? 

It’s not until they’re out on a trail into the forests surrounding Camelot, searching for this sorceress, that Merlin realizes they’re heading in the same direction as yesterday. It’s possible that Arthur hadn’t defeated her yesterday after Merlin had passed out, and they’re just looking for her again to finish the fight—but things are starting to feel a little too familiar. The feeling grows as they circle closer to where the witch is hiding out; Merlin knows this area, knows they were here just yesterday, because it’s the exact same spot. Wouldn’t she have moved? 

Merlin pulls his horse up short, wanting to call out to Arthur and ask what exactly they were doing back here, but he never gets the chance. Arthur shouts from somewhere ahead of him, followed by a blast of heat and light that Merlin can feel even from where he stands. Merlin knows, before it happens, that Arthur’s horse is going to come bursting through the brush, but Arthur won’t be riding it. It will race past him and his own horse will startle, and he’ll have to wrestle with the reins to keep it under control, just like he did yesterday. Unless, it wasn’t yesterday? His deja vu has grown to epic proportions, and he knows exactly what’s going to happen right before it happens. It’s like he  _ remembers  _ it.

Almost as if he’s lived through it before. 

Merlin remembers the curse, then. Or at least, what he thought was a curse. It’s feeling more and more like it  _ was  _ a curse, because he’s apparently living through yesterday a second time, and he’s the only one who knows. Which means he’s the only one who knows what this sorceress is about to try to do to Arthur, too. 

The next few things happen in quick succession; Merlin dismounts and heads towards where he’d seen Arthur disappear, the sorceress throws a spell that blasts past his ear—only missing him because he remembers what it felt like to get hit with it before, and he manages to dodge this time—and before Merlin knows it they’re back where this all started. 

The sorceress forces Arthur’s sword from his hand, again, and winds up to toss the black ball of magic between her palms. Merlin doesn’t even hesitate this time. He slides himself between Arthur and the curse before the sorceress has even finished throwing it. He thinks he catches a flash of a knowing smirk on her face before it collides, and he’s slammed into darkness. 

* * *

Merlin wakes up. He opens his eyes to the ceiling of his room in Gaius’ tower, feels the scratchy blankets beneath him, and—wait. He’s done this before. 

He sits up and listens, and sure enough, he can hear Gaius muttering to himself about oatmeal in the next room. He climbs off the bed and steps out, knowing what he’ll see before he sees it: Gaius ladling oatmeal into two bowls at the table, and he’ll turn around once he notices Merlin and say—

“Ah, Merlin. Just in time.” 

Okay, so Merlin was right. This is definitely a curse, and he’s doomed to repeat the same day unless he can find a way to break the loop. Hopefully, that won’t be a big deal. 

Merlin just smiles at Gaius and accepts the oatmeal, making a show of eating a few mouthfuls as he listens for Arthur to come bursting through the door and haul him off to fight the sorceress in the woods. Again. 

Everything repeats. Arthur leads him out into the forest, they find the witch, she throws the curse; Merlin barely has enough time to think, let alone figure out how to break this loop he’s stuck in. Maybe doing something differently than before will throw it off? Worth a try, right? 

So he pushes Arthur out of the way rather than just standing in front of him. Yeah, it’s not much, but he’s working on a tight schedule here. Arthur hits the ground and the curse hits Merlin, and down he goes. 

* * *

Merlin wakes up. He sighs, frustrated, and tries again. He tries again, and again, and again. He wakes up again, and again, and again. No matter what he changes, the loop repeats. He wakes up in his bed and heads off into the woods and fights this sorceress, over and over again. 

It’s not always exactly the same. It starts the same, usually, with the oatmeal and the horses getting spooked and Arthur’s shout from ahead of him. But sometimes, the ending changes. Merlin is sure by about the fifth loop that the sorceress knows what’s happening, that she must be outside of the loop somehow, because she looks so smug when he arrives, every time. She seems to like switching it up, throwing him off when she can. It’s not always the curse that hits him. Sometimes it’s a blast of fire, a wave of red hot agony. Sometimes it’s lightning, crackling across his skin and leaving trails of burning pain. 

She gets creative, once, and pulls a glowing sword out of thin air. He’d be impressed, if she hadn’t used it to slice him nearly in half. That one took the longest before he’d looped—he’d heard her laughing as he bled out, with Arthur trying desperately to keep pressure on the wound. He’d died choking on his own blood, that time. Or, well, not really? He’s not dead anymore, because the day restarted, again. 

Merlin is so tired. He’s lost count by now of how many times he’s woken up. He’s lost track of what he’s tried to change, because nothing is working. He’s sure by now he’s tried everything, run through a million different versions of this day, and the only constant is that he makes sure that he saves Arthur every time. That, at least, he refuses to change. If the only way to break this curse is to let Arthur take it on? No way. That’s not even an option, really. Merlin will keep looping forever if he has to. He’s not about to let Arthur get hurt. 

* * *

Merlin wakes up. He forces himself out of his bed, ignores the oatmeal, and meets Arthur halfway down the corridor. He follows Arthur into the forest, dodges the blast of magic that flies past his ear, and sneers at the witch when she smiles knowingly at him. 

He doesn’t want to do this. Maybe if he doesn’t dodge this next spell, maybe if he lets it hit him before she can throw the curse again—

But Arthur is in front of him, sword raised, before he’s even finished that thought. Merlin startles, eyes widening. The sorceress has her arm poised and ready to strike, but this is different, this is new, and Merlin is supposed to be protecting Arthur, not the other way around, and he can’t let Arthur get hit, he  _ can’t.  _

Everything is happening so fast and Merlin doesn’t know how to stop it, and the witch is grinning at them, and then she cuts her arm through the air and an arc of light barrels towards them, like a blade meant to slice them in two. 

“Arthur,  _ no– _ ” Merlin starts, shoving at him, but Arthur plants himself and refuses to move. All Merlin can do is watch, and hope desperately that this won’t end the way he thinks it will. The light flashes and Merlin closes his eyes, begging whatever magic is holding him in this loop that he won’t have to watch Arthur die. He hears Arthur grunt and shift in front of him, and he wants to wake up, wake up,  _ wake up.  _

Merlin doesn’t wake up. Instead, to his surprise, he hears a shriek of pain that’s distinctly  _ not  _ Arthur, and pries his eyes open again to see the sorceress halfway across the clearing with a smoldering, blackened wound carved deep into her chest. 

Arthur is still in front of him, breathing hard, and grimacing down at what used to be his sword. The blade is drooping, half molten, and he drops it with a hiss when the hot metal bites through his glove. Apparently, he’d used his sword to deflect the spell back onto the witch.

“I wasn’t sure that would work,” he muses, and turns to look Merlin over. “You alright, Merlin?” 

“You’re an idiot,” Merlin manages, with less anger than he really meant for it to hold. He smacks Arthur halfheartedly on the arm. “You could’ve  _ died.”  _

Arthur shrugs and says, “Yeah. But I didn’t.” 

Merlin laughs, half hysterical. This man is  _ unbelievable.  _ He doesn’t know what to do with him. Arthur gives him a funny look, before turning and leading the way back to the horses. He snatches his sword up again on the way, under the pretense that the castle armory can melt it down the rest of the way and use the metal again. 

Merlin trails after him in a bit of a daze, confused by the fact that all of this is new. None of it has happened before. He doesn’t want to let himself hope, but when they’re back at the castle and he’s climbing into bed for the first time in who knows how long, he can’t help it. Maybe, just maybe, killing the witch had broken his curse?

* * *

Merlin wakes up. Tentatively, he gets out of bed and heads for the main room. When he peeks past his door, he sees Gaius by the table, with two bowls set out. He grimaces and looks, hesitantly, over Gaius’ shoulder to see what he’s holding. 

Merlin doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to see a pot of soup in his life. 

**Author's Note:**

> kudos & comments are lovely, I'm on [tumblr](https://nearly-writes.tumblr.com/) if you want to yell about this or anything else


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